The air is crisp, and the wind pulls at the loose hair around her face. She'll need a haircut soon, she thinks as she pushes unruly strands out of her eyes. There's something beautiful about sunrise over sea, and she doesn't want to fight to see it.
"Black looks good on you."
She sighs from where she rests against the railing. Only Zoro, Sanji, and Brook are up. Sanji is preparing breakfast, and Brook is steering the ship.
"Only because of your crew," she says.
She runs a finger over her sleeves and marvels at the smoothness of paint against the rough texture of the cloth. Whatever Usopp used, it shows no signs of coming off or fading.
"Did Nami charge you for it?" Zoro asks, leaning on the railing beside her.
Zoro doesn't look at her, but she doubts he's admiring the view like she is. The sun hasn't risen all the way yet, but it's growing painful to look at.
"If there was a fee, it's one I haven't figured out," she answers.
As much as she wants to believe helping her was done out of the goodness of their hearts, she hasn't forgotten that she sails with pirates, and pirates don't do kindness for nothing. Friendly though they may be, she doubts the Straw Hats are any different in that regard.
"If you didn't get a bill, I wouldn't worry about it," Zoro says.
The waves crashing against the ship are loud in the following silence. The sun grows too bright to stare at, and doors begin creaking open behind them.
Unspoken words pollute the air with tension, and Zoro turns to her. She braces herself.
"For years, I've worked to keep my promise to you. I'm not letting you go just because you're scared," Zoro tells her.
There's a gasp and a scrambling of hooves. She ignores it to give Zoro her best glare. He raises an eyebrow to show he's less than impressed.
"I am scared," she finally admits.
There are so many things she's terrified of. What if she can't be loved, and the only thing she's capable of is hurting everyone around her. What if she isn't strong enough, and Zoro dies because of her.
(What if one day she wakes up and isn't here anymore?)
"I've already come to terms that you'll die one day. That I might watch you disappear. And I might go before you. It's just what happens for people like you and me," she says, hand hovering over the hilt of her sword.
"But there's a reason pirates marry good girls who stay on their island," she says, voice lowering as their audience behind them grows. "There's no worry about clashing loyalties or wives who sail into danger. No running into spouses on the opposite side of the battlefield. Those pirates get to have something to come home to without working for it."
There are countless tales of men taking off to sea and leaving behind wives to forever wait for their return. Some of those women never see their loved ones more than a handful of times in their lives and some never again. It's viewed as true romantic love, but to her, it sounds like anything but.
"You deserve someone like that, who will be waiting for you to come back," she says, because I can't wait for you.
"Boring and pointless. I can't be happy with that," Zoro says with a frown.
"Why not? Isn't that what normal people want?" She asks, frustration leaking into her voice.
"Do I look like an average grunt to you?" Zoro snaps at her.
She can't love someone she'll never get to share her life with, but perhaps Zoro is the same. Or perhaps trapping him in a betrothal contract truly messed up his perception on marriage. She can't decide which.
"I'll sail back and tell my father it's over," she says, regretting the words but saying them anyway. "I can't be with someone so weak."
She doesn't have nightmares; she doesn't see Zoro falling to her blade when she closes her eyes, but she remembers with startling clarity how easy it all was. That Zoro will forever have a scar on his back, dishonoring him.
Leave a scar on the front and give him something to remember.
A knife is pulled out of a sleeve before she can stop herself, and she's pressing the tip of the blade against Zoro's chest as gasps and muffled whispers break out behind her. She looks Zoro straight in the eyes.
"I can hurt you without even thinking about it," she confesses. "Go find someone else."
Zoro looks down at the knife before glancing at her with a smirk. He leans forward, and there's an alarming amount of pressure against her hand. The knife cuts through Zoro's shirt and the bandages underneath to dig into skin. Blood begins dripping down the knife.
"Are you crazy?" She shouts, yanking the knife away.
"A little bit," Zoro admits, "but you have to be to sail on the Grand Line."
He looks at her pointedly. She throws the knife onto the ground—she refuses to wipe the blood off with her sleeve when there are napkins right there in the kitchen—and begins snarling at Zoro.
"Shall I add more scars? How about one on your face this time?"
Zoro rubs at the small wound on his chest. It's a shallow cut, and the bleeding is already stopping. Zoro smears the blood over his shirt, making the injury look worse than it truly is.
"I hurt you," Zoro says with certainty, "but I swear to you, here and now, it won't happen again. I will be the greatest swordsman in the world, and I will protect you."
Her anger fractures as her brain attempts to comprehend the drivel that Zoro spews. She's used to curses and vows to defeat her. This sappy stuff is new.
"Who the hell needs to be protected?" She demands fiercely.
"I'll be stronger than you, so I'll need to protect you," obviously, Zoro's tone implies, "but until then, I'll keep your tears from falling."
To anyone else, those lines might sound romantic, but to swordsmen like them, it means something else entirely. She feels her hand twitch.
"Are you," she sputters, "are you calling me a crybaby?"
"I thought you were going to get my bandages wet when you were hovering over my bedside," Zoro says condescendingly.
She hears another gasp. She swivels around and glares. All the Straw Hats are watching from a picnic blanket spread out on the grassy deck. Breakfast dishes surround them.
Brook takes a sip of tea and tips his hat at her. Franky pumps a fist at her with tears in his eyes. Luffy swallows a whole ham while staring at her unblinkingly. The rest paste innocent looks onto their faces.
To hell with it.
"I'm really going to kill you this time," she says flatly.
Tsubasa de Tobu practically sings as she unsheathes it. She turns and swings. Her pink blade is met by the steel of Wado Ichimonji, and Zoro grins as she twists out of the lock.
Nami begins screaming about damage to the ship, but she tunes it out as Zoro places Wado Ichimonji in his mouth. Sandai Kitetsu and Zoro's new black sword are drawn. She moves into a better stance.
"Let me introduce you to Shusui. Its blade is hard enough to break others," Zoro says through the sword clutched in his teeth.
As if to formally introduce them, Shusui is what comes at her first. It is strong and unyielding—stubborn, she thinks, but Tsubasa de Tobu is still yet greater in that regard—and it becomes clear that Sandai Kitetsu is the weakest of Zoro's swords despite its desperate calls for bloodshed.
No doubt Zoro expects her to target Sandai Kitetsu first and is ready to counter the attempt. She leads him on a merry chase around the ship until she gets him just where she wants him: on the upper deck, cornering her against the railing.
She reaches behind her, grabs the railing, and falls backward with a well-aimed kick. Shusui goes flying, and she lands near the picnic blanket on the lower deck. The Straw Hats sans Nami clap politely.
One day Zoro will realize she rarely plays by the rules.
The battle ends when she disarms Zoro's other swords and kicks him so hard into the railing that it breaks. Zoro falls into the sea. She peers over the side of the ship to check that Zoro isn't drowning before taking a seat on the picnic blanket.
Sanji is already up and throwing a rope down to Zoro along with a slew of insults; Luffy is with him, pointing down at Zoro and escalating the angry shouting with a few silly words.
Robin hands her a glass of orange juice, and Franky puts a plate of tarts in front of her. Chopper pokes her while making frustrated noises, and Nami huffs angrily about the ship but doesn't mention charging anything. She thanks them all before digging into breakfast like one about to starve.
Tsubasa de Tobu lies content in its scabbard. If she strains her ears, she might hear a smug laugh on the wind. She supposes it deserves the satisfaction of beating such magnificent swords.
Zoro, soaking wet and dripping water, plops down next to her. She slides the now mostly empty plate of tarts over to him. He grabs one and tears into it, ignoring the blood rolling down his arm.
"You didn't go easy on me. I thought you were going to cut my arm off. Good," Zoro says through a mouthful of food.
She takes a sip of juice instead of replying. Chopper, after being reminded that he is, in fact, a doctor, frantically scrambles for a first aid kit. Zoro holds his left arm out with a scowl while Chopper screams at them both.
"This is too deep! Way too deep!" Chopper scolds as Zoro's arm disappears under bandages.
She was less than careful when trying to rid Zoro of Sandai Kitetsu. He moved quicker than she anticipated, and Tsubasa de Tobu bit hard. Zoro's injury will definitely scar, but the fact doesn't make her feel guilty in the slightest. Really, she almost feels proud.
Perhaps Zoro is right: only the crazy sail on the Grand Line.
"I will give you one chance," she says, and for some reason it feels like everyone is suddenly holding their breath, "to convince me that I should stick around."
"I'll take it," is Zoro's immediate reply.
...
Franky, perhaps due to the fact she's no longer hiding in her bedroom, decides that it's finally time to get her new wings finished. She doesn't quite like any of the designs he's come up with, but she's grateful that he's trying at all.
"And I thought, hey, if I didn't know which ones to go with, let's make them all!" Franky points at seven pairs of wings of varying size and shape. "I call them the Franky Flight System!"
Franky picks up a pair of wings that look like they were ripped off of an airplane. A large Jolly Roger in Franky's likeness is stamped onto each white wing, and Franky holds them out to her with a huge grin that mirrors the Jolly Roger. The straps dangle tauntingly at her.
I'm grateful, she reminds herself, I'm super grateful.
"Okay," she says, wilting.
The airplane wings—dubbed Franky Flightline 1—have turbines powered by cola. In theory, she'll be able to actually fly in short bursts. The tradeoff is that there is nothing resembling the psychic connection her old wings had. She has an on and off switch and no control over how she descends.
"Test Flight Number One, commence!" Franky shouts from somewhere below her.
She looks down from where she stands on top of the crow's nest and gulps. She can feel her knees shaking ever so slightly. Did she ever tell Zoro that she is afraid of heights? She hopes not.
"Whenever you're ready!" Franky's voice helpfully points out she's not moving.
She inhales deeply and hits the switch. She's jerked forward and the wings make an alarming clanking noise. The noise stops, and she's soon flying over ocean, leaving a trail of exhaust behind her. She tries to shift the wings to circle the Thousand Sunny, and to her surprise, it works.
Then the wings' turbines explode, and she falls into the ocean.
Zoro fishes her out and helps get the wings off. Franky cries dramatically over the failed Franky Flightline 1 but is soon standing over her with the next pair of wings. They look like butterfly wings made of paper.
Zoro wishes her luck under his breath. She doesn't jab him in the arm, but it's a near thing.
"Test Flight Number Two, commence!" Franky yells.
She takes a moment and looks beneath her to carefully judge what would hurt the most. She certainly doesn't want to land on any garden spikes. Zoro, she notes, would probably catch her before letting her squash him. She turns in his direction before jumping.
Her faith in Franky is apparently terrible because the wings hold up, and she's soon gliding around the deck in circles. While still not as responsive as her old wings, the glide actually seems to be more stable.
She's content until Luffy accidentally launches a fork right at her. It goes straight through a wing. She goes down hard, and despite her best efforts to steer her wild descent, she misses her target.
"Gah!" Sanji screams as she barrels into his back.
"Sorry," she says, not sounding apologetic in the least and making no effort to get up, "was aiming for Zoro."
Franky cries some more as Sanji curses and pushes her off. She hits the floor with a groan. Zoro's laughter mocks all three of them. Robin, watching all of this from the tree swing, scribbles something in a notebook.
"Test Flight Number Three, commence!"
The next pair of wings resembles a bat's. Once she gets over how different the leather material is from the metal she's used to, she finds that she quite likes the design. It's somewhat crushing that she barely makes it over the sea before the wings collapse in on themselves.
"Only four more to go," Zoro grunts as he pulls her up.
She makes a miserable drowning noise in agreement. Franky bursts into a fresh set of tears.
Franky Flightline 4 through 7 don't survive their test flights either. She's disappointed but not surprised. There's just no replicating the wings made from Cherub Island. She says as much to Franky.
"Idea!" Franky drops all the failed wings in a pile and rushes over to his work desk. "Instead of building from scratch, what if we use the old wings as a foundation?"
Even though there's no point of holding onto them, she hesitates on giving up her broken wings. Some part of her baulks at the thought of anyone touching them. Franky has to beg before she agrees.
"No turbines. No changing the wing structure. Whatever you take off, give it to me," she directs as she hands her old pair to Franky.
"Just leave it to me!" Franky salutes her.
The next morning sees her standing back on top of the crow's nest. She flexes her wings and revels in them moving as she wills it. Even if these wings look rather crude compared to the others, she vastly prefers them over the Franky Flightlines.
Franky did his best, but it's obvious which feathers are new. Unlike the metal ones that have a rainbow sheen, the ones patched in are off-color with a normal metal shine.
There's no getting around it; her wings look like someone cobbled together whatever they could find to fill the holes. Franky doesn't have access to the same materials Shoya used, and it shows.
"Test Flight Number Eight, commence!" Franky shouts.
She's probably going to fall. There's no way these wings will fly again, and that hurts in a way she can't describe.
Still, she wants to try. She misses her wings far more than she will admit to, and as long as she doesn't get her hopes up, there's nothing wrong with trying.
"You'll catch me this time, won't you Zoro?" She yells down.
"You better aim for Sanji!" Zoro yells back.
Sanji shouts something angrily, and a scuffle breaks out below her. She lets the wind take her quiet laughter away. She feels better than she has in days even if the pain from yesterday's falls makes her legs tremble.
She faces downwind and jumps, wings snapping open behind her. Despite the certainty that her wings are going to fail her, she glides to the sea without a problem. It feels like she's descending faster, but then the wings are heavier.
She circles around the Thousand Sunny, and no matter how much she twists and turns, the wings show no signs of breaking. She folds them in for a swoop, and to her delight, her wings are responsive as ever.
"I think they work!" She dares to hope.
The sea hears her words and decides to crush them. An unnaturally large whirlpool forms suddenly underneath her, and the Thousand Sunny jerks into a different direction. She tries to move away herself, but an enormous fishing hook shoots straight up and out of the whirlpool.
She is straight in the hook's path, and no amount of twisting gets her out of the way in time. The fishing hook latches onto her right wing, and the barbed tip pierces through the new feathers as if they weren't even there.
The incredibly thick wire attached to the hook goes taut and begins pulling. Her good wing flaps frantically in an attempt to resist, but she's being slowly dragged down. She goes to undo her harness only to realize that means falling directly into the whirlpool.
She's been leaving Tsubasa de Tobu with Zoro ever since her third failed test flight. She tries to slice through the wire with a knife, but it barely leaves a scratch.
Setting the line on fire means setting herself on fire. There's no way she can unhook her wing, not with that amount of pressure.
She's out of options.
(It seems Test Flight Number Eight is a failure after all.)
"Son of a bitch," she seethes as yells ring out behind her.
Whatever is reeling her in decides it's tired of this struggle. The amount of force pulling on her increases immensely, and her right wing breaks explosively under the sudden pressure. Her left wing loses a few feathers from the burst of metal.
Something must hit her head; she's getting dizzy, and it feels like more than sweat is dripping down her neck.
Narrowing her eyes, she grabs the fishing line with one hand and keeps ahold of her knife with the other. She's pulled down into the whirlpool, but instead of getting crushed, she's being dragged through a tunnel of swirling sea.
The fishing line continues pulling her down farther and farther. Ahead of her is nothing but darkness with a small speck light somewhere in the distance. The water continues swirling around her, giving her a space of air to breathe.
She tightens her grip on the wire; she can't afford to let go now. The hook might rip completely through the rest of her wing, and she doesn't want to find out what happens if she's suddenly thrown out of the tunnel.
"I blame Luffy," she says through gritted teeth.
(She's probably wrong about it being Luffy's fault, but the thought makes her feel better anyway.)
Shout out to everyone who's left a review and helped this story reach a year old! You guys are amazing, and hearing from you is a true blessing.